May 22
2010
Ahead of the Curve: Opportunities for Leadership in Local Governments
Ahead of the Curve blog series authored by HB Lanarc and sponsored by BasicGov explores trends in municipal management, including a move to adopt sustainable practices. Leading communities are taking on all of these trends and leveraging opportunities to improve services to citizens and productivity
Opportunities for Leadership in Development Review and Approvals
1. Making Sustainability a Daily Consideration
The most innovative communities are incorporating sustainable development through a wide range of policies and regulations, for example: passive building design, citizen behaviour (car and bike sharing, public space walkable designs, recycling, and habitat conservation), transit-oriented development, neighbourhood-scale renewable energy utilities, and water conservation and reuse technologies. A key strategy is to consider buildings, streetscapes, landscaping, and infrastructure together to facilitate innovative, sustainable developments.
Every development application is an opportunity to ensure and track implementation of these policies and regulations. Because considering different systems together involves many different organizations (e.g. integrating planning, engineering, building, operations and maintenance can create efficiencies, saving money and energy), information tracking and timing for triggering actions is a critical part of embedding sustainability in the development management process.
Next week we’ll talk about faster processes and making visions real.
Previous Ahead of the Curve blog posts Trend 1 – Drive toward sustainability, Trend 2 – Mounting fiscal challenges, Trend 3 – public demands for accountability, Trend 4 – reduce red tape, Trend 5 – risk management, Trend 6 – preparing for emergencies, Development process – manage land use.
